Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) elements formed of a multilayer film consisting of a ferromagnetic layer and a non-magnetic layer, and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) elements using an insulating layer (a tunnel barrier layer or a barrier layer) as a non-magnetic layer have been known. In general, TMR elements have higher element resistance than GMR elements, but a magnetoresistance (MR) ratio of the TMR elements is higher than that of the GMR elements. The TMR elements can be divided into two types. One type is related to TMR elements using only a tunneling effect using an effect of soaking-out of a wave function between ferromagnetic layers. The other type is related to TMR elements using coherent tunneling using conduction in a specific orbit of a non-magnetic insulating layer where tunneling is carried out when the above-described tunneling effect is caused. TMR elements using coherent tunneling have been known to obtain a higher MR ratio than TMR elements using only tunneling. The coherent tunneling effect is caused in a case where both of the ferromagnetic layer and the non-magnetic insulating layer are crystalline and an interface between the ferromagnetic layer and the non-magnetic insulating layer is crystallographically continuous.
Magnetoresistance effect elements are used for various purposes. For example, magnetoresistance effect-type magnetic sensors have been known as magnetic sensors, and magnetoresistance effect elements determine characteristics of a reproducing function of hard disk drives. Magnetic sensors have a system that detects, as a resistance change of a magnetoresistance effect element, an effect that a magnetization direction of the magnetoresistance effect element is changed by an external magnetic field. According to Non-Patent Document 1, it is known that the highest reproducing performance can be obtained in a case where RA is about 0.1 to 0.2 in a magnetic sensor for detecting a magnetic field of a micro-region, which is represented by a magnetic head, with a consideration of high-frequency response.
Highly anticipated devices are magnetoresistance change-type random access memories (MRAM). MRAMs are memories that read magnetoresistance as digital signals of 0 and 1 by appropriately changing ferromagnetic magnetization directions of two layers to parallel or antiparallel directions.